


An Incredibly Delicate Instrument and a Million Years of Evolution Walk out of a Gunfight

by Dracopaladin



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-typical drug and alcohol stuff, Cuddling, Drug Addiction, Hand Jobs, M/M, Rutting, Sloppy Makeouts, Suicidal Thoughts, canon-atypical sex stuff, canon-typical suicidal ideation and existential horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28529688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracopaladin/pseuds/Dracopaladin
Summary: Harry and Kim come out of the tribunal alive but seriously shaken, and have only each other to turn to for comfort. And in this case, comfort means sex.
Relationships: Harry Du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	An Incredibly Delicate Instrument and a Million Years of Evolution Walk out of a Gunfight

Unconsciousness shoves you to the pavement, scratching and bruising your paper-thin resolve. You consider fighting back, but you’re tired of fighting by now, aren’t you? You may not remember, but you know you’ve been in plenty of fights before, and you know this is one fight you’re going to lose. There’s no point fighting this one, Harry. You can only stay under and listen to yourself speak for so long before you need a breath of air. 

Of course, drowning is  _ also _ an option, that alluring final door… 

But you can hear a radio, and you want to know what’s going on in the realm of meat and music. You’re convinced to wake up, if not for yourself, for this new case. 

You open your eyes. You’re on the couch in your room in the Whirling-in-Rags.

“Sunrise, parabellum,” the lieutenant says. He’s in the middle of a freshly cleaned room, with the singular ceiling light framing his head as he peers down at you His face is covered in bruises.

He looks like shit.

“Morning, Kim,” you yawn, not bothering to sit up. You feel a bit wobbly, at the moment, like your cerebellum has finally done an acrobatic pirouette out of your skull through your ear and is going on daring adventures around the room while your body festers. You tilt your head so you can look around the room without it being sideways.

Your eyes dart around, but you don’t see any mid-brain structures exploring the room. But the cerebellum is a small structure compared to the cerebrum, and could well be hiding under yonder table… 

“How are you feeling?” Kim asks, after you’ve spent perhaps a few moments too long surveying the room.

“My leg hurts,” you say, because it’s true. You got shot. It hurt like cold fire (or hot ice? Lukewarm water? A soft touch?) at the time, and your frail form shudders just to remember it.

“It will hurt more when your medication wears off, detective,” Kim observes. “Right now, you seem to be doing quite well for someone who’s been out for two days.”

Two days, huh? With all the wonderful company in your head, the time just flew right by.

“Yeah, well you look awful,” you say. That was neither a kind nor productive thing to say, so you backtrack, “I mean, whoever treated my leg should really have done something about…” you wave an arm limply at his whole face, beatifically silhouetted by artificial light as he is.

He doesn’t look quite human, with the bruises smudging the edges of his profile and the light of the lamp right behind him, casting his face in shadow. He looks softer, like a painting. Or a dream. A good dream, not like the ones you have. 

You’ve just had a wonderful idea for your next piece of graffito.

“Unfortunately,” Kim sighs, “the individual who saw to your leg was rather busy making sure you didn’t succumb to bacterial infection, and wasn’t willing to spend much time on his own face when his partner was in critical condition.”

Oh, wait a second. You were in critical condition. Because of being shot. And Kim is your partner on this case, and he said you were the partner of the person who treated you for the last two days, so by the transitive property…

You should thank him.

“Thanks, Kim,” you say, kind of half-sitting up now so you can look at him without tilting your head anymore. It takes several minutes, and while Kim darts close at first out of concern you wave him off. This isn’t the leg thing, it just… takes you a while, often, to get used to having a body again when you wake up. 

It’s never a pleasant surprise, waking up wrapped in a layer of tissue that feels things.

“For everything,” you continue when you’re mostly upright. You mainly mean him helping with your leg, but also you feel like you haven’t thanked him enough for everything else he’s done for you. You could have died, back at the tribunal. You both could have died. And as appealing as it is, still, the idea of going out guns blazing…

You want to make the most of this time. It feels like borrowed time, liminal time, like you’re close to the ending of it all now.

It feels like you might be past the ending, or beside it, and you’re here only by the grace of cruel chance. 

Or fate. 

Or decisions you could never hope to understand.

“Thank you, detective.”

Kim snaps you out of your existential appraisal, delicately sitting on the couch beside you. It must be nasty, you were sleeping on this thing covered in alcohol and vomit for a few days before Kim even showed up, you worked the whole case while living in this room, and then you spent two days unconscious on it.

You should have flipped the cushions over before Kim came.

“Your warning about the woman behind me saved my life, that day.” Kim swallows, and it’s a fascinating process. His features bend downwards for just a second as his chin dips, then his neck pulses as it carries saliva to his stomach, and his eyes close for just a moment, barely longer than a blink.

“I… I didn’t think that we’d both come out of there alive,” Kim whispers.

It’s okay that he’s quiet, because he’s so close to you. He’s sitting where your head was just moments ago, and you’re propped up with your head practically on his shoulder. But not quite, because you don’t want your greasy hair to sully Kim’s jacket.

“We were lucky,” you whisper, like it would be wrong, now, to talk at a normal volume.

Kim gives you a strange look. He’s wondering how serious you’re being, or if you’re making one of those strange jokes he believes he’s just recently become used to.

After the momentary look he mutters, “Titus and the old man, the one who gave us the key to the back rooms of the Whirling. Eugene, I think?” 

You nod. Eugene’s solid.

“They’re the only others who lived. Well, the woman who handled their legal affairs escaped, as you may remember, and they still haven’t found Shanky after he ran off, but the other half of the Hardie boys are dead.”

Alain. Glen. Fat Angus. You see them in the ground; cold, bloody, still. The image overlaps in your vision with them at their table in the Whirling, drinking and laughing and arguing with you.

“I should buy a round for the survivors,” you muse aloud. “Titus seems like he could pound them back and I’ll eat my tie if Eugene can’t drink like a paledriver, he’s seen some shit for sure.”

Kim seems mad. A touch of disappointment, too, like he expected better from you.

Shows what he knows.

“Glen took several shots that were meant for me,” Kim says coldly, “and all three of them were unarmed civilians we should have protected. We failed, detective, and people suffered because of it. I know you’re…”

He can’t find the words. He knows you’re callous, dedicated, self-absorbed, jaded, volatile.

“Not at your best, right now,” he continues, “but don’t you feel some empathy for them? How are you so cavalier, after such failure?”

You laugh, your lungs gulping quick cold breaths of air and firing them out in a staccato gunfire at Kim. He flinches in the face of your assault.

“Kim,” you say with a smile after your quick burst of humor has wormed its way out of your core, “I feel sad for them, of course I do. They were hardcore! I respect that. I feel sad for the mercs, too. They had nice armor, for all the good it did them. I feel sad for Garte, having to clean the hotel up and deal with the broken windows. You, the whole saddled-with-a-sorry-cop-with-a-death-wish thing. Cuno, his dad. I’m... you get it, right?”

He doesn’t get it. Keep going.

“It all sucks, it’s all bad. I’m sad for everyone, Kim. I have regrets about everything. All I do is failure, this isn’t some new experience to me. I’ve been around the block a few bajillion times, or at least I’m pretty sure I have been. It feels like it. You… what did you say, earlier?”

He doesn’t know what you’re referring to, obviously. You’re too vague.

During the shootout, when you were on the verge of giving up, letting the darkness take you. He said you had a vast soul.

“You said I have a vast soul. Remember that?”

Kim nods, slowly. He’s nervous, scared almost, but he doesn’t get up or tense.

He’s scared for you, not of you.

“I… I dunno, I think a lot. I care, I have a lot of feelings.” You feel tears begin to scratch their ways out of the corners of your eyes. It hurts.

“I,” you sob, tears and snot beginning to erupt, “I thought I was gonna lose you, Kim!” You bury your head in his chest. Fuck his jacket, it’s getting a pressure hose of mucus and tears to the xiphoid process.

Kim freezes. You’re in a slightly awkward position, here, half-laying down on a hotel couch, body sideways facing the room while your back rests against the couch cushions and your face twists awkwardly into Kim’s bony ribs as he sits frozen and silent, the room rocking with your sobs; the morning chirping of Martinaise pigeons in the distance continues as incongruous background noise to your delayed breakdown.

He starts patting your head with his left hand, while the right grips the arm of the couch. You can’t see his face, since your eyes are buried in his jacket and emancipating all your liquid sorrows, teaspoon after torrid teaspoon.

From out on the balcony, your mind’s eye peers in on the scene through a newly-fixed window. Your body doesn’t seem like it’s accustomed to crying, and Kim certainly doesn’t look like he’s used to giving comfort. The morning light stabbing in from outside washes out the scene, giving it an aspect of artificiality.

After a minute or two of sobbing into his jacket, you feel the heaving of your lungs begin to slow. You can breath again. Kim’s hand is resting on your head, now.

He’s nervous, you hear it in the coiled sinew of his fingers.

He begins stroking your hair, and in the silence of the room (the birds must have stopped singing, at some point while you were crying too loud to hear them) you can hear the rustle of Kim deftly parting curls and tangles as he runs his fingers across your scalp.

You push your head into his hand, like a cat.

A 44-year old, depressed, alcoholic cat who hears voices.

It’s only been around Kim that you’ve ever been comfortable, in all your short, memorable days in Martinaise. Your conversation on the swings, exploring the doomed commercial area, your (amazing) performance downstairs, Kim saving you after you found your ledger, talking with you about his awesome car, dancing at the church slash anodic music dance club.

It’s good, to have a partner in all this mess. A friend.

“I love you, Kim,” you practically blubber into his shirt. You’re pathetic, honestly, weeping like a drowning cow into the arms of your *subordinate officer* on the filthy couch of your shitty hotel room in a shithole town on a world that’s being extinguished. You really fucking suck. You don’t even—

Kim tilts your head up with two fingers, leans down, and kisses you lightly on the lips.

Huh.

You really shouldn’t be surprised. In hindsight, saying “I love you” while hugging someone and practically sitting in their lap is kind of sappy. Romantic, even?

You remember soft skin, long hair, an omnipresent apricot-adjacent odor.

Well, now what? You could let him down easy or jump off of him immediately and run, depending on how awkward you’re willing for the situation to get. And if you can run with your leg like this. He’d understand if you don’t feel the same way (do you?), or if you’re just generally too fucked up to do this kind of thing right now (what is “this kind of thing?”). Any of these options would be accepted by your partner, Kim’s cool.

Or… you could kiss back.

You contemplate this for a moment. Time is frozen, of course, as the voices in your head offer their conflicting opinions on the viability of sloppy cop-on-cop makeouts.

Kim’s a good kisser, tilting your chin back at just the right angle and applying a good amount of force with his lips so he’s bold but not pushing your head back.

Your leg aches. Your head is sore. Your heart hurts.

You’ve kissed plenty before, though you can’t quite place who or when. Your lips have seen some lovin’ in their time, though.

A weak vibration runs down your spinal cord; you can feel the weight of your body pressing into Kim’s, your muscles straining slightly to hold yourself up on the couch.

You’re an enlightened, modern man who doesn’t worry about people’s sexualities, of course. But still. You’re not… well… a member of Kim’s faction. But still. Is it allowed to be attracted to women and also kiss a man? 

Who cares if it’s allowed, what the consequences are, what happens next. This could be interesting.

A bottle of al-ghul would really fucking help right about now, with the pain and your decision-making.

Kim’s face is covered in bruises, which after two days are less purple and yellow and closer to his skin tone; they’ll still be sensitive to the touch for a day or two, though. Luckily none of them cover his lips, but you’ll have to be careful not to touch his jaw or forehead especially. His eyes are closed tight, a strand or two of hair falling down across his forehead and over his glasses.

Well, Lieutenant Du Bois? You’ve heard the council speak, what is your decision?

You kiss back.

You don’t know why, do you? By now you’re used to all the voices coaching you, guiding you, elevating-relegating-shifting you above-beneath-beside the realm of mortal men. But right now you want to see where this goes naturally. You remember how that ended up last time, Harry, don’t you? It’s the one memory that pushed you to self-destruct in the first place. Sure, go and see where this leads. You’ll be back at rock-bottom soon enough when none of it works out, and next time maybe you’ll be willing to go all the way up-down-away, somewhere you can never come back from.

Kim makes a little moan-adjacent sound when you stick your tongue in his mouth.

The voices take a back seat in your mind, allowing you some privacy for now. You could probably feel them fading, if you were paying attention to that sort of thing right now.

You push your face deeper into the kiss and readjust so you’re sitting squarely on Kim’s lap. The blanket you were wearing as you slept falls to the floor, and you can more easily feel the cool Martinaise air that’s pervaded the room slip under your shirt. Kim’s warm, though, so you press yourself against his chest.

Straddling your partner, legs bent at an awkward angle with your knees digging into the sofa, you don’t have the best leverage. Kim’s head is resting against the back of the couch, but you’re coming at him almost from above because you’re taller, but he can’t tilt his head back far enough to look you in the eyes so you’re mostly kissing his top lip.

He tastes like cigarettes.

You break the kiss, leaning back while still balanced on Kim’s lap. Somehow his hands migrated to your sides without you noticing, and only now do you feel his fingers sliding along the skin under your shirt. And somehow your hands ended up in his hair. You look into Kim’s eyes. Ever-so-slightly dilated, brown, darting all over you.

“Have you been smoking?” you ask before Kim can say anything. He looked like he was about to.

Kim nods immediately, like he can’t resist responding to you. Swallows. Answers aloud, a moment later, “I just… finished my one for the day, waiting for you to wake up.”

You’d be worried about him, but it’s far too hypocritical for you to be concerned about Kim potentially smoking to calm his nerves early in the day when you drank yourself half to death less than a week ago. You’ve been doing better recently, though! And some of that has been due to Kim, not wanting to disappoint him, wanting to do this right so he’d be happy with you.

Oh, you really like him, don’t you?

Kim leans forward so he’s speaking into your neck, but you can hear the smile in his voice. It pulses like a radio finding a station, and it tickles your beard.

“Harry…” he murmurs, and you’re suddenly fighting the urge to pull him back by the hair and kiss him again. You didn’t expect to be turned on by Kim just saying your name, but you can’t help yourself. He sounds so nice, so needy.

“I’m really happy you feel the same way about me. I know it’s unprofessional, and sudden, but—”

You shake your head against his, and he realizes how futile it is to talk to  _ you _ about unprofessionalism and sudden shifts in behavior. Just to drive the point home, you start kissing his neck a bit. A lot. You also don’t really feel like talking right now, and this is a grade-a distraction.

“My bedroom’s open… maybe we should…” Kim’s having trouble concentrating, and judging by the way his hands are moving up and down your sides over and over again you think he’s feeling the same way you are. A bit overwhelmed, surprised at himself, horny, and high out of his mind on the moment.

You lean back and pry yourself off of Kim, carefully rising to your feet so you stand in front of him. Your legs twinge a little as you stand up, since you’ve been lying down for two days and then crouched for a good minute of make-outs.  
You lean forward and reach out a hand to help Kim up, and he takes it.

As soon as Kim’s taken your hand you yank him up with your right hand, place your left hand just under his ass, and scoop him up so you’re carrying him in your arms. It’s a mix of a fireman’s carry and bridal carry, Kim’s ass and thighs cradled against your chest while his head is above and behind yours, looking over your back.

“Lieutenant!” Kim immediately whisper-shouts, craning his head around while the rest of his body is frozen, “Your leg! You should probably put me down, I’m not even sure you should be walking around yet let alone carrying—”

You start walking towards the door to Kim’s room, and Kim sighs like he knows he’s not going to win this one.

You’re stubborn, and while the voices in your head are giving you some privacy while you get your freak on you know that if Coach Physical Instrument were here he’d be cheering you on. All this muscle of yours didn’t do you any good finding Ruby or facing the mercenary tribunal, but it’s letting you carry Kim to bed like it’s no big deal. So at least now it’s good for something.

Kim’s room is nice, with faded yellow sheets on the bed and an organized desk with papers and a clock. It doesn’t really jive with your hedonist side, but it’s very man-imposing-order-on-a-chaotic-world-through-cleaning-his-room chic. In a sexy way, maybe? Or maybe you’re still so fucked up on pain meds and trauma that you temporarily think organizational skills are the peak of sexual desirability.

You don’t want to throw Kim down on his own bed, because a part of you knows if you let go of him he’ll vanish like smoke. You don’t get nice things except in bottles, people don’t just love you. Or, they do, but then they stop eventually, because you hurt them or you fuck yourself up and they can’t watch or they die. But Kim’s different, he doesn’t let you hurt yourself or him too bad to come back from, he keeps you from opening that last door, he hasn’t died.

Kim’s nice. He’s perfect. He’s immortal. Kim Kitsuragi is an angel.

Kim Kitsuragi is not an angel. He’s just a good person with a solid head on his shoulders, surprisingly high emotional intelligence, and good instincts in a fight. He’s supported you when you needed it, and you want to be more like him. He’s a good man. 

You toss yourself backwards onto the bed, your skull almost slamming into the wall at the head of the bed where a headboard would be if Kim had bought a nicer room. But you switch your hold on Kim so he’s not above you so he doesn’t slam into the wall, which is good because that would definitely ruin the mood and you really want to fuck this guy. Or get fucked, maybe, you’re new to this. You wanna see where this goes, at least. You switch to holding his ass with both hands, carrying him by your waist, so when you fall backwards Kim lands on your stomach and chest.

And so not  _ only _ have your muscles proved useful, so has the layer of fat that slowly accumulated above it due to your lifestyle of excess! Each late night of drinking followed by sleeping through the whole of the next day has contributed scant millimeters to building a cushion for your lover, how poetic. It almost brings a tear to your eye.

“Harry,” Kim whispers as he gets settled on top of you, toes tapping against yours while he rests his chin on your shoulder, “I didn’t bring any condoms.”

You nod. Yesterday (three days ago, really, ‘cause you were out for two days, but since when have you let reality get in the way of your monologuing?) you were shot twice, your partner got a concussion and almost died, and three civilians died violently, murdered by a squad of paramilitary goons with an attitude problem who you killed right back, because fair’s fair. That was the worst day you can remember ever having, though it’s possible the only reason you can’t remember a worse day is because you got blackout drunk and passed out the last time you even  _ remembered _ feeling bad, just a few days ago, and just a few days before  _ that _ you developed amnesia due to serious alcohol and drug abuse for years on end.

You’ll survive holding off from anal for a day.

Does the Frittte sell condoms?

You’ll deal with that later. Going shopping right now would ruin the mood, and as has been previously established you’d rather take another two bullets than ruin the mood right now. And also you’re not sure you could make it down the stairs.

Kim’s jacket is easy enough to shuck off, and he helps you do it. He takes his shirt off by himself, while you struggle with your dress shirt. It’s already mostly unbuttoned, but the cuffs are too tight for you to easily get it off while lying on your back under Kim. And also maybe you’re a little bit extremely distracted watching Kim peel off his shirt, because after all despite some of your best efforts to destroy your higher brain functions so all that’s left is a pre-cambrian shelled creature of base desire and instinct, you’re still only human, and seeing a new lover focused entirely on disrobing, vulnerable and naively self-absorbed in dim light or darkness, is always a tantalizing view that deserves to be savored.

So you do, for the 8.7 seconds it takes Kim to peel off his white undershirt and toss it past the foot of the bed with his iconic jacket. He immediately sets to helping you out of your cuffs with the same intensity he investigated a hanged corpse or a crashed car or a phasmid trap. It’s a good thing you don’t really do dirty talk, given how morbid your thoughts tend. And how hilarious, since this probably isn’t the time for jokes. Actually, maybe you should talk less? Or just think before you speak. Wow, finally some brilliant ideas now that the voices are taking a break! You knew you had it in yourself.

Kim finally manages to wrestle your shirt off of you, and tosses it disdainfully over his shoulder. As soon as he’s done so, you drag him down into a bear-hug. It’s simply not fair to have someone so pretty sitting on your lap and not be able to hug him. He’s pretty with his shirt off, skinny without being bony. But it’s even better to feel him than to see him, so you pull him down and for a while you just hold Kim tight so he can’t get off of you, even though he’s grabbing your shoulder and arm (the one that didn’t get grazed by a bullet during the tribunal) so hard that you don’t think he’d climb off of you even if he wanted to. 

Better safe than sorry.

If you had the voices right now, you’d probably feel better, and you know it. Rhetoric could tell you what words to say, suggestion how to say them, composure how to keep from crying as you spoke. Maybe drama, instead, since there’s no way you’d keep composure if you talked right now but you could maybe act like you had everything together, like you weren’t falling apart as a smaller mirror to a world that’s falling into nothingness. Empathy or esprit de corps might help you understand Kim better, so you’d understand this incredibly delicate instrument of a man you’re holding in your arms, a real human being who you realize you have the power to hurt, if you allow yourself to spiral like you’ve done so many times before. Endurance, interfacing, good ol’ coach physical instrument, (even authority or pain threshold if you wanna get kinky) could counsel you when it comes down to the mechanics of… hrmm, no fancy metaphors spring to mind for this one. When it comes to sex. The gruesome mechanics of that most ancient… ah, if only the Ancient Reptilian Brain were here to say something poetic about sex, you’d at least feel like you had a guide and/or adversary. But there are no voices in your head right now, or if there are they’re being quiet or subtle to let you enjoy this moment by yourself. You’re alone.

Well, except for the man lying on your chest.

It’s comfortable, having Kim on you, and you kind of lose track of time. He shifts around a little to get more comfortable, you prop your neck up a bit with a pillow, and then you cuddle away the morning. You keep playing with Kim’s hair; it’s short, and so thin you can tangle it up with your fingers for minutes on end, and when you withdraw it just flops back down onto his forehead. You run your hands down his back; it’s an interesting sensation to trace the curve of his spine, the feel of harsh bone muffled by smooth skin draped atop it, and when you let a bit of your nail walk the path of his spine Kim shivers and presses in closer to you. He grips your hip and your shoulder softly, breathes quietly just above your heart. It’s a really nice way to spend your morning, calm and warm after that initial burst of frenzied passion. You both really needed a long hug, more than you realized.

Eventually, you get horny again.

Maybe if you ignore it it’ll go away. You’re enjoying your cuddles, and Kim doesn’t have condoms so you can’t get up to much. And you’re kind of worried you’ve forgotten how to have sex good. What if you can’t live up to your image as a supercop rock-god with potent sexual energy, daring panache, and stunning stamina?

Well, Kim’s cool, he won’t mind if you nut fast as long as you help him out too.

And you can still jerk eachother off without condoms. You remember how to do that, at least.

And, besides, you’re horny. Kim can probably feel your boner poking him through your pants, and that doesn’t make for the most cozy of cuddles.

You grunt as you sit up some more and reach down to get your pants zipper undone, and the combination of sudden noise and motion makes Kim jump. He gets the idea soon enough, though, and helps you undo your zipper and pull your pants down a bit before he starts on his own zipper.

You can’t take your pants all the way off right now, since if you’re not careful that could agitate your bullet wound and there’s  _ nothing _ that ruins a potential mood more than re-opening the wound that put you in a coma for two days. So, for now, you just unzip, pull your dick out, and push the pants down a few inches so you won’t scrape your knuckle on metal.

Kim shifts from leg to leg while straddling you so he can fully pull his pants off and toss them off the bed, then scrambles to his feet for a moment.

You automatically make this pathetic little mewling sound to sort of signify “dude come on don’t leave me to rock out with my cock out, mosey on back and I can’t promise I’ll be a sex god but I’ll at least make you cum eventually,” and he shushes you with a little giggle.

You’ve never heard him  _ giggle _ before. Would it be biased to say it sounds sexy? Well, you won’t say it, because you’re trying to think before you talk nowadays, but you’ll think it really hard because it’s how you feel.

Kim, savior of saviors, retrieves a bottle of lube from his desk drawer. It’s a bit incongruous seeing a pink plastic bottle of lube (with a stencilled-on, cartoon-ish silhouette of a man pleasuring himself, no less) come out of that organized desk in such a business-like room, but hey.

Lube is lube.

Kim  _ finally _ comes back to the bed and drapes himself back over you, placing the bottle on a convenient area of the desk right by your head where you can both reach it easily. That was smart! Man, Kim’s so cool.

Kim’s straddling you, now, and gets started seriously fucking up your neck with kisses and little bites and some weird sucking thing which feels extraordinarily good but will almost certainly leave a hickey. You’re going to have to wear a scarf when you leave the room, but it’s cold enough that won’t draw undue attention. And you’ve worn stranger outfits. 

While Kim’s focused on making you melt into a puddle of euphoric mush, you get to work on the dick situation. A squirt of lube on your hand and some fumbling around gets you both of your dicks in hand soon enough, and after making sure both of you are fully lubed up you get to work.

Kim’s dick is thinner than yours, but a bit longer, with a slight upward curve. He’s already close, or at least it feels like it, because after just thirty or forty seconds of jerking (pretty skilled jerking, you’d say, considering this is your first time doing it with another guy) he’s already leaking a lot of precum right over the fuzzy landing strip below your stomach, which is just making you more excited in turn.

Kim moves up from your neck to your face, and starts making out with you like he’s drowning and you’re an oxygen mask or life preserver or something. The image of kim making out with a life preserver makes you smile, as does feeling his dick on your stomach. He’s thrusting a bit over your gut, getting off on the friction and smearing lube all over your hairy belly. He’s just at the right height where your dick still rubs against his when he pulls back a bit, but mostly is nestled between his balls and thigh off to one side. 

You find that your hands have moved themselves to critical locations; left hand at Kim’s ass, helping him to thrust harder and more often, while your right is weakly pushing his face into your neck. You thrust back a bit at Kim, but let him do most of the work. You have your excuses—you’re new to this, you have a gunshot wound in your leg, it’s tough to maneuver on the bottom—but it’s probably most accurate (and honest) to just admit that Kim is really giving you a good time and you can’t think of any way to make it better, so you’re just letting him do his thing.

Kim pulls back from your neck, that monster, only to give you a quick kiss as he crosses to start ravaging the other side of your neck. You shift your hands accordingly, and notice that Kim’s thrusts are becoming slightly harder and more erratic, perhaps imperceptibly faster. He’s close, now, and so are you. The little lubed-up cranny of Kim’s crotch has been giving you more than enough stimulation for minutes on end, and after who knows how long of being pent up it’s really no surprise that you’re close this soon.

You let go of Kim’s head, since he seems to know what he’s doing up there, and get both hands firmly on his ass. Following the general pattern of his thrusts, you pick up the pace and intensity to just wantonly drag him across you. Kim’s dick is nestled against your gut and shooting more and more warm pre-cum, while you’re twitching and about to unload against his balls and the base of his dick. Finally Kim leaves off his assault of your neck and rests his head next to yours on the pillow, clutching at both your shoulders as he mutters into your ear, “Harry…”

Well, you’re a sentimental guy. You lean your head so you can start making out with Kim like there’s no tomorrow, and around 0.35 seconds after he kisses you back you come. He’s not far behind, moaning into your kiss as he unloads onto you.

It’s going to be quite the mess to clean up for both of you, what with all the semen on your stomach and Kim’s dick. He’s still thrusting a bit after he finishes, riding that last little bit of the high as far as it can take him, smearing more over both of you.

Your heart won’t be able to take this, not again. The whirlwind romance, fooling around like teens, the inevitable crushing realization that nobody can fix you. You’ve done better before, you always have periods of clarity and softness and love, but it’s never enough to make up for how awful you are at your core. Nothing is.

Kim’s creaky, ragged breathing fills the yellow room and blots out the mid-day light. It’s ugly, all of it, cum-soaked stomach hair and harsh light and dirty sheets. Soon it will all be wiped clean, but for now the slate is filled with the scribblings of a frustrated god. Then these temporary pains and pleasures will be gone, the physical distractions cleared so you can enjoy yourself in the void.

The Fritte has alcohol, nicotine. You can’t afford much, but at least enough to feel better for a bit, you can afford that. And you deserve a treat, you’ve been doing so well. 

Your head is crowded once more with aspects of your psyche that you’d so carefully warded off at the start of this, clamoring for blood and circuses with a fervor born of impatience. You’ve spent long enough relaxing and making love and feeling good, now it’s time for the part people care about. It’s time to make a fool of yourself in public and fight people and struggle nobly (but pointlessly) against addiction and talk endlessly about politics and metaphysics. Go, get out of bed. Put on a show.

“I need to use the facilities,” Kim interjects, “be right back.” He’s still on top of you. Your arms are still wrapped around him, hands firmly grasping his ass.

“Right, right,” you say, and let go of him. He uses a tissue from a box by the bedside to wipe off the worst of the mess from his own abdomen and crotch, tosses you the box to clean up with, then half-scurries over to the bathroom in your room. You hear the shower start up; it’s going to be far too cold at first, and you would warn Kim, but he probably expects it. He’s smart, he knows this place is a dump and the pipes are old.

You begin to think of the future, which is probably less painful than thinking of the past but still certainly not the wisest choice. You can’t help yourself, though, can you? The same curiosity that keeps you on this earth means you can never stop hurting yourself while you’re here.

Downstairs, Garte turns on a radio.

Obviously, there are going to be some issues, and your psyche rather helpfully runs down a list of problems and tasks you’re going to have to see to sooner or later.

\- News of the shootout should reach Precinct 41 soon enough, and they’re going to be pissed. If you could find the true killer, maybe you could get them off your back? The RCM values results above all else—it’s why they keep you around.

\- Talk to Titus, order up a round for the survivors. Might be able to find out how Evrart and the Dockworkers on the whole are reacting to all this.

\- You’d really like some alcohol and/or drugs, just as a celebration of how well you’ve been doing sober. Check with Kim about his daily cig, and/or see if you can’t get yourself a little well-deserved treat for how well you’ve been handling the case. Ideally without plunging into a spiral and disappointing Kim.

\- Speaking of Kim, you’re going to need to figure out what’s going on there. Are you two fuckbuddies, now? Partners who had a one-night thing?  _ Lovers _ ? You’re not exactly familiar with the ways of the Homo-sexual Underground, but you’re ready to do some investigative work. Maybe the smoking man will know more.

Kim’s head and shoulders pop out of the room’s doorway as he peeks over from the bathroom. 

“Lieutenant,” he begins, then corrects himself, “I mean… Harry, would you like to join me in the shower? It seems you received the brunt of the mess we made, and I could use this time to help you clean your bullet wound. Or have… um, shower sex. If you’re well enough, that is, and would be interested in such a thing. I know we just finished a few minutes ago, but—”

You’re already hurrying to stand up, pants half-falling to your upper thighs as you go to join him. You can feel another task being added to your mental itinerary as you go.

-Fuck Kim in the shower. And maybe also on that ratty couch. And cuddle some more, a lot more. And ask for a dance, because the radio from downstairs sounds absolutely enchanting. And see if he wants to stay together, maybe even join the 41st, because it would be amazing to have a partner like him long-term. On the force and in civilian life.

You don’t spare a moment to look at the mirror as you enter the bathroom (Kim’s right there, naked, how could you look away?) but you can feel it in the determined pull of your zygomaticus major upon your mouth, the curling of your lip into a snarl-like visage that bares your teeth, the creasing of your eyes as the edges of your vision narrow slightly. 

You’re smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I don't know if this reads as similar to DE's writing style at all but it was fun to write, at least, and I'm glad it's done. Initially I was planning a longer hurt/comfort fic exploring all their time after the tribunal as Kim and Harry work through addiction, political intrigue, and have multiple sex scenes, but I realized that it was a huge pain to write something so long and decided to just write and post the first planned chunk/chapter as a standalone. Maaaaaybe if The People demand it I'll do a sequel? Idk I'm trying to write more as my 2021 resolution so even if I don't write a full sequel/series there may be related snippets and microfic thoughts tangential to this just because it's a really fun style to write in, even though it's not the easiest. ANYway thanks again for reading! <3


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